Walk into Via Roma in Camp Springs, Maryland, and you might think you’re in a pizzeria. The ovular pies coming out of the oven certainly look like pizzas. They’re not – they’re pinsas.
The difference lies in the crust, which manages to be crispy on the bottom and bubbly soft on top. Though the pizza-adjacent dish is popular in Italy, it’s only started showing up in the States over the last few years. The newness and novelty were part of the appeal for owner Biagio Cepollaro. “We didn’t want to do yet another Neapolitan pizzeria,” Cepollaro says.
The original recipe for pinsa was devised during the Roman Empire, taking its name from the Latin word “pinsere,” meaning “to crush.” Rather than tossing the dough up in the air or rolling it out, it’s pressed flat using one’s fingers. The crust is made with a combination of soy, wheat, and rice flours. After mixing the dough, it proofs for three days. Crusts are precooked for a minute in an electric oven, allowed to cool, and then topped and cooked for another three minutes. All this adds up to create the contrasting crunchy-chewy crust.
Overseeing the pinsa operation is chef Tonino Topolino, a Napoletano and former pizza consultant. His menu features both red sauce and white options. In the former category: pepperoni paired with fontina rather than the usual mozzarella; the Malafemmena (“bad woman” in Italian) with spicy Calabrian salami, Calabrian chilies, and chili threads; and a meat lover’s extravaganza loaded with salami, ham, sausage, and pepperoni. On the blanco side, one pie is inspired by a Caprese salad, while another is a breakfast-y riff topped with bacon, scrambled eggs, and Pecorino.
Pinsa dough is used to make baguette-shaped sandwich rolls for a series of pinsini sandwiches, including meatballs awash in marinara and a chicken parm. What is perhaps the best needs to be special ordered, because it’s a “secret menu” item: slender, tender folds of mortadella showered with fresh lemon zest sitting a bed of arugula glistening with olive oil.
Not in the mood for a pinsa? There’s a selection of house-made pastas, including casarecce, fettucine, spaghetti, and rigatoni. Appetizers include fried mozzarella balls, garlic bread, arancini, and crab tots – giant fried balls of shredded Maryland crab meat you dunk into zesty lemon aioli. And there are a few desserts, including cannoli, tiramisu, and pillowy bomboloni dusted with confectioners’ sugar.
The drinks menu is brief: mostly Italian wines, a dozen beers splits between drafts and cans, and some classic cocktails, such as an Aperol Spritz, a blueberry-laced Moscow Mule, and gin and tonic tarted up with blood orange puree.
In the morning, a small café counter in the front serves baked goods and Lavazza coffee. Behind it looms the cavernous main room with over 80 seats, complemented by 40 more on the patio. The open kitchen runs along the left side of the room and a small bar is on the right. Reds, whites, and rich woods accent the room, while a colorful, swirling mural in the back captures the restaurant’s namesake street in Naples.
Via Roma’s opening took its own long and winding road. Cepollaro signed the lease at the beginning of 2020 with an eye to opening that summer. Then COVID-19 happened. The restaurant finally began welcoming guests this past February.
Cepollaro is in the middle of his second career. Most of his professional life was working as a journalist covering minor league sports in his home country of Italy. However, in 2008, family friends decided to open Oro Pomodoro, a Neapolitan pizzeria in Rockville, and they were looking for a partner. “I knew nothing about pizza or restaurants in the United States, but I always loved this country, so I came,” says Cepollaro.
The restaurant closed in 2014, but Cepollaro stayed in the States, taking management jobs at Posto and Café Milano. “Still the best job I ever had in my life,” he says of the latter. “I shook hands with not only some of the most famous people in the world, but some of the most interesting: Buzz Aldrin, Dave Chappelle, LeBron James, Bill and Hillary Clinton.”
Via Roma is located at 4531 Telfair Blvd #110, Camp Springs, Md. Open Tuesday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
